15-year-old admits driving pickup in fatal hit-and-run

A 15-year-old Greeley boy, charged with the death of one girl and seriously injuring another, appeared in juvenile court Wednesday and said he understood how he’d hurt the girls’ families. He added, “It was an accident that could have happened to anybody.”

The boy appeared before Magistrate Rebecca Koppes Conway, who cited nine charges Greeley police had leveled against him. His name will be released if the Weld District Attorney’s Office charges him as an adult.

The charges from police include felonies: vehicular homicide, criminal negligent homicide, vehicular assault, hit-and-run involving death and hit-and-run involving serious bodily injury. He’s also facing four misdemeanors: driving without a driver’s license, no proof of insurance, reckless driving and exhibition of speed.

An interpreter was provided in court for the boy and his parents.

Shortly before 4 p.m. Monday, two cousins, Jasmine Hernandez Manriquez and Ivette Rodriguez, both 9 years old, were on the street on a bicycle and scooter, when they were hit by a red pickup.

Jasmine was killed and Ivette was seriously injured. She is now recovering at Children’s Hospital in Denver.

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Police were given the license number of the pickup and traced it to the 15-year-old’s home just three blocks from the scene of the crash.

Weld court affidavits state the pickup was inside the garage with the garage door closed. When police checked, the hood of the pickup was still warm, and the underside of the vehicle had numerous fresh scratches.

The boy’s father said he didn’t give permission to his son to drive the pickup, and even removed and hid the license plates so he wouldn’t take the truck.

However, the boy told police he found the plates, put them on the truck, then after the crash removed the plates and hid them back under a couch cushion. Police said it appeared that someone had tried to wash the truck before officers arrived at the house.

According to court affidavits, the boy admitted to the officers that he was driving the truck and didn’t know the girls were behind him when he backed up. He said he became frightened and left. The boy also said his father didn’t know he had the truck — that he took it without permission.

Witnesses at the scene Monday said there was another person in the pickup with the boy. No other arrests have been made in the case.

Witnesses also said that just before the girls were hit, the driver of the truck was doing “burn-outs,” or revving up the truck engine to make the tires squeal in forward and reverse gears. The affidavits also said the truck dragged one of the girls and her bicycle for a short distance as he fled the scene.

A district attorney’s representative Wednesday asked that the boy be held without bond, or if bond had to be set, it should be at least $100,000. Koppes Conway said the boy was “out of control” and was engaged in behavior that is very damaging to the community.

She ordered the boy held without bond, and his next court hearing will be Sept. 6. He is in custody at the Platte Valley Youth Detention Center north of Greeley.